Denna Pryce
Denna Pryce '''(approx. August, 1973) is an Odet female, who currently resides in Los Angeles, California. She is a demon fighter and unofficial champion, and sometimes called the steward of the God King's house. =Vital statistics= Sex: Female Age: 36 Height: 6'0 Weight: 135 lbs (61.23 kg) Eyes: Blue. Hair: Black. Date of birth: Exact date is unknown. Place of birth: Kiamo, Ki'shara Province, OdenTal. Distinguishing Marks: The 'ko', a raised area of the spine that is her physical power center. A row of black ridges on each cheekbone. Massive burn scar tissue on her shoulders, upper and lower back. Lashmarks scars over her posterior and the backs of her thighs. The Odet character for "cursed" branded an inch or so above her tailbone. Stab wound scars, long slashes and stretchmarks on her sides, belly, and hips. A long scar from a knifepoint on her sternum. Bite mark scars (none of them vampiric) on each breast. Bite mark scar (vampiric) on her left shoulder. General Appearance: Usually dresses in jeans and long-sleeved shirts, to cover her scars. Most of her shirts are black or white, and most of the colors in her wardrobe are dull, nondescript ones, like olive drab or beige, though she has bright colors and printed skirts for special ocassions. Her favorite jacket is a faded, dusty-looking dark blue jean jacket with a high collar and a hem that reaches her ankles. Her shoes are standard jump boots from an Army/Navy store. She prefers to be barefoot at home. Abilties: She has both pyrokinesis (the ability to create, extinguish or otherwise manipulate fire) and telekinesis (moving objects with her mind). She is well-versed in the arts of torture. An experienced, if not overly trained, martial artist. Limited experience in forging weapons. EXTREMELY high tolerance for pain--there are people on PCP that'll whine over their aches before she will. Once had the gifts of prophecy and psychic empathy, though this is no longer the case. Speaks two languages (English and Odet), and over 50 regional OdenTal subdialects. This has made her an expert linguist, and though she doesn't learn to speak languages very well, she's an adept text translator. =Bio= Denna was born to Gervet and Lu'cinala (Loo-chin-ala), a botanist and his unmade wife, in the late winter of Earth year 1973. Her family was dismayed at her birth, not only because she was a girl child, but because the newborn showed the early signs of a Sidh (cursed) birth, and it wouldn't be long before the Trar, the priesthood that worked hand in hand with the Vigory government, came to take Denna and her parents away. As expected, they arrived in the middle of the night three days after her birth, hauling all three away to Erisel, the province's capital city and the seat of the entire empire, none of them ever meant to leave. Upon arrival, the priests fitted a Sidh-beren ('curse-breaker'--a magical collar that would prevent her from ever using her powers without permission) around the baby's neck, something she would end up wearing for the bulk of her life. As soon as she was old enough to speak, therefore to think, her daily lessons in giving and receiving pain began. The first thing she was taught, above all other things, from the very earliest days of her childhood, was that the powers she'd been born with were a curse, a sign of internal corruption, and the only way to fight this corruption was to submit to their tortures, to obey all she was taught, and to only ever use her powers in the way the Trar saw fit. They taught her techniques of extracting confessions, punishing criminals and executing traitors every day from the time she was old enough to remember, using her own parents for practice. The two finally died, at Denna's own hands, when she was thirteen. Daily lessons in giving and receiving torture become more and more intense as she grew older, rape added to the list of ways to break her after she completed puberty. Her body was, part and pracel, the property not only of the Trar, but of the guards who stood outside her cell at night. From all of her victims, she learned multiple regional dialects of her native tongue, becoming fluent as she documented their confessions, their curses, excuses, pleas for mercy and cries of pain. She took little note of these, and lesser note of her living conditions. It never occurred to her to question. Though the Sidh-born, on the whole, were not permitted to be social creatures, Denna was allowed to share her cell with and closely befriended a fellow Sidh-born female named Andrade. This other girl was the only kindness she knew in her youth, and the one who put the idea into her head to escape when their captors finally crossed the line. When she was seventeen, an important political prisoner was placed in Denna's hands. She extracted as much information out of him as she could, but it was not enough. Things were only made worse when there was a raid on the temple and he escaped. The punishment was unbearable. More than half of her bodily scars were acquired in the two weeks that followed the prisoner's flight from Erisel. She had never been tortured quite so thoroughly before in her life, and would never properly perceive pain again. Worse still than the physical torture were the words and accusations they hurled at her. Her already warped and fragile mind nearly shattered as she was blamed for the escape, for the raid, for the lack of details that were so desperately needed to get him back. Finally, a bruised, burned and bloodied shell of her former self, she was returned to her cell, where Andrade treated her wounds and cursed those that had done this to her. "It wasn't your fault! They had no right to do this!" This line of thinking was entirely new to her. Not being at fault for what happened in her life, the Trar not having the right to punish her. As she slowly came back to herself, she did so as a completely different person--one who realized that a wrong had been done to her, who wanted revenge. The next few years passed, strangely easy compared to all the ones that had led up to that terrible incident. Now that she could hardly feel pain, let alone stoop to caring about it, and the bored, cold look on her face unnerved all who came across her path, the days of being raped and tortured had come to an end. They gave her her duties, and avoided her as much as possible. She requested, at the age of nineteen, to be taught how to read, claiming she wanted to see the older records of confession extraction, to learn more sophisticated methods of torture. What more she could possibly learn, they had no idea, but they consented. They feared to meet her eyes, but were mostly confident of their superiority, convinced she was warped and broken, and had only the mind of a child, forgetting completely that children can be cunning. She read the records they kept on older confessions, but also on their own techniques for keeping the girls under their thumbs. It took until she was twenty-one, but she found what she was looking for: the process of enchanting a collar and putting it on. Logically, if she could see how to put it on, perhaps she could learn to take it off. And learn she did. In the dead of night one summer, when Andrade was away torturing a prisoner, she drained the power from her collar and tore it from her throat. Finally, in complete control of her powers, she escaped with ease from her cell, killing six guards and escaping to the lorthil, a gate that opened portals to other dimensions. This was how she came to find herself, lost and alone, in the streets of Los Angeles, a place with noises and cars and many wonders she'd never before seen, including vampires. As she slowly learned the language and culture of her surroundings, she became increasingly more interested in these strange creatures that were neither dead nor alive, and impervious to virtually anything that could be done to harm them. She may yet find some use for them, for her desire to return to Oden Tal and free her kind and destroy the empire that sought to imprison them was very strong. Inspiration finally struck in the form of a Biblical passage being shouted by a homeless man on the street. From what she could gather, this powerful Anti-Christ the man had spoken of was the child of a demon that would come and smite those in power, along with many others. (It would be some time before she learned this version of events was not entirely accurate) Months of careful research on vampire reproduction, and methods of making it possible, punctuated with periodic returns to Oden Tal to liberate not only her friend, Andrade, but any Morv Sidh who would agree to swear undying loyalty to her, kept her busy and gave her purpose as she made her plan: to bear the child of a vampire and use that child as a weapon to bring down the Vigory Empire. Once the rest of the plan was secured, all she needed was the vampire. The one that drew her attention was Angel. He was stronger than any other male vampire she had ever seen up to this point, and she was eager to use him in her plans. She began to study him as carefully as she had studied everything else, looking for the best method to approach him. She learned all about his years in Sunnydale and recent past in Los Angeles, and everything she could about his co-workers and former acquaintances, information she would later need. She went to Angel and delivered her proposal, which of course he rejected. But she was not discouraged. Her opportunity came a few weeks later. She abducted Angel, then used a glamour to masquerade as Buffy, coming to rescue him. She fed him a powerful restorative, the Blood of Angels, to give him back his fertility, and from there, it was a simple matter of convincing him that the strange necklace she wore was a gypsy pendant to prevent the loss of his soul, and she seduced him. She knew from the moment it took root in her body that she was carrying a child, and, deciding prudence was the better part of valor, left before Angel woke up, leaving behind a piece of paper with the Odet character for 'love' on it, something they were able to use to figure out that she had tricked him. Denna waited out the weeks of her short pregnancy in hiding, keeping away from AI and feeling strangely at peace for the first time in her life as she made the transition to motherhood. She bonded with her child, and though she wouldn't realize it until later, began to love it. The boy, who she named Kiin (a name which in her tongue meant 'blood fire'), entered the world in the dead of night on November 12th, 2000. Within moments of his birth, Angel (who had been summoned by Denna's warriors) became the first of their son's parents to hold him. This made it all too easy for Denna to later deposit their rapidly growing baby on his father's doorstep, telling him to see if he was willing to give up his son after having and holding him, and to reconsider her request that he come work with her. As expected, Angel couldn't resist the lure of being a father to his child, and joined the ranks of her warriors, to help raise his son. Weeks passed, and Kiin quickly grew to maturity, aging at the accelerated rate of her species' males, made even quicker by a jumpstart in his human genetics. When his apparent age was fifteen (his actual age roughly three weeks), Denna decided they were ready to return to OdenTal and start their rebellion. But it was not meant to be. Angel admitted to playing her the entire time, and the entire place was flooded by members of Angel's team. Though they'd prepared for such an event, her girls were badly outnumbered and outgunned, and soon, Denna was forced to flee, taking the battle between herself and Angel into the sewers. The two fought wildly, Denna determined to kill him for betraying her when he had become the first man she ever allowed herself to trust, and she nearly succeeded, until her own son drove an axe into her back, killing her to save his father. Nothing will give a person perspective more than dying and landing themselves in a hellish afterlife where everything they've ever done wrong is replayed for them until they accept that it was wrong. There was no way to mark the passage of time in that place, but once she had her lesson learned and learned well, she was sent back to Earth, naked and traumatized, her hair grown long and gray. She might've wandered like that forever if she hadn't been found on the streets...by none other than Kiin himself. She discovered that much time had passed and Angel's old offices were gone. He had moved into the enormous Hyperion Hotel, where she was given sanctuary after her frightened penitence struck a chord of sympathy within Angel and he allowed her to stay. Slowly, she worked her way back into life, forging relationships with her son and his father, finding for herself a place in the world. Angel was becoming her best friend, and Kiin was finally seeing her as a mother, instead of a battle instructor, as he had so few times during his childhood. She adored Kiin's girlfriend Cosette, loving the girl as if it were her own daughter. She may have come to be happy, if it hadn't been for Andrade. Her life-long friend came to her, appealing for her aid in the rebellion that her girls had proceeded into without her during her time in the afterlife, now a bloody civil war ravaging their homelands. Feeling responsible for the women she'd trained and the ideals she'd taught, there was no way to say 'no'. The months passed slowly in Oden Tal, the blistering heat of the high summer blending easily into the winter's freezing snow. Many she knew died--not just of wounds or in battle, though there was plenty of that--but of cold, sickness and hunger. It was no surprise when they were driven into the hills of a small community near Erisel, a place called Bilhah, where the war was lost. The number of casualties were devestating. The wounded lay in the hills of Bilhah, stretching out for nearly a mile, with only a handful of healers to go around. Denna herself had taken a nasty gut wound, and lay in the fields, her will and a careful grip around her waist the only thing holding her intestines in. The stitches she was given were the poor, child's stitches of a novice, and quickly became inflamed, then infected. She was feverish and in pain and certain she was going to die when, once again, she came face to face with her son. Kiin had come to Oden Tal, fleeing Angel's wrath after the disappearance of his infant half-brother, which had happened largely in part due to Kiin's own paranoia over a prophecy that said Angel would kill the baby, Connor. Finding the state his mother was in, he was forced to take her back to Earth, where his foster mother, Lily, could heal her. Though the infection itself was cured and the wounds were healed, Denna found herself recuperating slowly in the hotel. As this took place, she was astonished to learn what had transpired in her absence--Angel's passage through darkness, his affair with his sire, Darla, and the child that had come to be born from their union. She saw how he and the others grieved for the baby, a loss she could not share in but felt keenly just the same...for a while, anyway. It was not long before the seemingly barbaric teenager tumbled back into their lives by means of a tear in reality. He fought everyone in the hotel, wounding and frightening each person, before fleeing once more. A few days after this incident, a sullen but more human-seeming Connor returned, attempting, to an extent, to fit in, something which was virtually, if not utterly, impossible. Denna, still wary of the boy, decided to try a Vigory tactic of making friends--sharing with him her physical weaknesses, so that she would pose less of a threat to him. This seemed to disarm him a little, and she became the first person on Earth that he was able to confide in. He told her of his pain, his confusion, the death of the man he considered his father. Her heart softened, and she took him under her wing, guarding him from the insensitive words or actions of the rest of AI as she would her own son, which was how she came to view him. They bonded over the next few months, helping each other through the confusion of Cordelia's 'Angel duplication' act (see timeline), the times when they thought the vampire Angel was killing, and even through the terrible night it all came to a head. An Angel imposter attacked her in the hotel, stabbing her and infecting with the Terak Dai, a terrible OdenTal posion that kills slowly over a period of weeks. The real Angel killed him, but Connor and Kiin came in to find what apparently looked like their father, dead, their mother dying and Angel kneeling over Denna's body with the knife in his hand. They captured him and sunk him to the bottom of the ocean in a large metal box, then departed for OdenTal in search of Denna's cure. She spent three months there with Connor and Kiin, teaching them both to become fluent in her mother tongue (contrary to popular belief, Kiin was not), as they took in the new world around them, making friends in the Atole (a temporary village/battle camp for Andrade and her remaining soldiers and their families) and slowly forging some semblance of a family, Connor even learning to call her "marra," the Odet word for "mother." =Trivia (Interactive)= 01. The first person Denna ever kissed was a prisoner named Gi'ana when she was sixteen. She kissed her because she wanted to know what a last breath tastes like. She was never punished for it--her reasons actually made the Trar a little bit scared of her. Just a little. 02. Denna's favorite food in the world is Taco Bell's chalupa. Her favorite food in her own world is beto. If asked, she'd say they actually taste very similar. She hopes no one ever asks, because the next logical question is, "What's beto?" The answer is, "A very large, grilled insect." 03. An average day in Denna's life is divided up thus: wake up at dawn, have breakfast with Wesley, read a book or newspaper with him for about two hours, then have him drop her off at HQ on his way to Pandora's. She works out for about four hours, then takes a shower and--barring him having other things to do--has lunch with Satrai. She takes two hours doing a sweep of HQ, making sure it's clean, free of any unknown squatters or things needing repair, then tends to the armory, making sure no weapons are missing and that they're all in perfect condition.She collects Zak and Peter's laundry and HQ's enormous supply of bedding and towels, and gets all of it clean and put away. She calls Wesley to check in with him at the store, and talks to him while she makes an inventory of what shopping needs to be done and makes a list for the end of the week. She takes an hour to go through the mail and the bills, keeping separate post boxes for practically every person who has ever lived there, even though some haven't been emptied in months. All practical considerations handled, she then hangs out with whoever's available until dinner. She cooks for everyone who shows up for it, leaves thermoses of heated blood for both Darla and Illyria, then has dinner with whoever's around. She says goodnight, locks up and goes home with Wes, makes a second dinner and eats again with him, then goes to bed. '''Peter's reaction: He was awkward about Denna cooking and cleaning for him at first, and tried to help her. He isn't used to anyone doing those kinds of things for him- more often, he's the one doing them for others. He got over that pretty quickly, because strange or not, having to do less work is always good. He insists on being the one to clean Satrai's room, however. "He's my god. This room is holy to me. It's just be weird for an unbeliever to go through it like that." Zak's reaction: While he isn't awkward about it, he usually offers to help (much to his host's annoyance). Satrai's reaction: He has never offered to help (though he would, if asked to). He's had servants all his life, and thinks that someone else managing his home is the natural order of things. He's followed Denna during her daily rounds a few times, asking questions about what she does and why. Not because he was unfamiliar with the process of managing a home (he's followed and questioned many of his father's servants) but because he was curious about what Denna thought and felt about it. Also, every home has different needs, and he wanted to learn what would have to be done if Denna were ever incapacitated or killed. 04. Wes and Denna's apartment isn't run with nearly that kind of efficiency, and it often shows when people visit. The reason for this is not only because she and Wesley are much more relaxed about life in their own home, but also that Denna thinks of HQ as the place where she expends most of her maternal energy. Running a perfectly neat and efficient house is how all women are taught to be good mothers in Oden Tal. 05. Denna is not religious, but she is superstitious. Being that her superstitions are Oden Tal superstitions, however, almost no one ever notices. The most visible trait it's ever manifested in is that each of her sons' rooms in HQ have a small, protective Odet calligraphic symbol burnt into the wood above each of their doors and windows. She did Satrai's as well when he left for Oshinurd, though on the outside instead of the inside. 06. Denna does all of the shopping for both HQ and the apartment at the local army/navy commisary. It's just cheaper. 07. Denna's only major regret about her relationship with Wesley (except for their separation) is their wedding. The ceremony was a tiny one, with only a few Odet friends in attendance, and with Andrade presiding. It's not only that the ceremony itself was disappointing and didn't involve any of their family, though that's a huge part of it, but that, because it was presided over by a woman, it's not legally valid in Oden Tal. That it's not legally valid on Earth goes without saying. 08. For six years, Denna made a point of making a daily patrol through the more demon-infested and dangerous areas of Los Angeles. She hasn't done it since she found out that Connor's working for Achaea. Satrai's reaction: '''Satrai went with her once, and asked her about things like why she patrols, how she feels about patrolling, how she chooses her targets, the purpose behind her fighting methods and tactics, and so on. He also commented that the champion system of protecting humanity is flawed: Any given champion is judge, jury and executioner to the demons they hunt, and it is entirely too easy for a champion to kill an innocent demon. It's also unreasonably likely that a champion will know too little about the species they hunt, putting them at unnecessary risk. When she stopped, he asked why. '''Jackal's reaction: Though he isn't certain why Denna stopped patrolling (he suspects), he's both grateful and disappointed. He's disappointed because he thinks that there should be champions out there keeping the demons in check; grateful because he doesn't have to choose between avoiding and scaring her. 09. Despite her violent hatred of the mainstream politics and mainstream religion in Oden Tal, Denna loves being Odet and is extremely proud of her heritage. She's traced her family history back centuries, and there's not a single politician or warrior in her line. They've all been botanists. She loves that, too. 10. Even though she's only two years older than Peter, Denna thinks of him as being very, very young--another kid to cook for, clean for, and look after. She's not disdainful when she thinks this; she loves it. After so many years of torture, darkness and death, having a place full of people that seem to like her, people she can naturally fall into familial archetype roles with, is like Heaven. Her home culture is built on the notion of having an enormous family: grandparents you see every day, aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings and nieces and nephews in out and of your house practically every minute; multiple mothers, dozens of children. She has none of these things herself. As far as she can tell, Peter doesn't, either. Mothering him seems to her the most natural thing in the world. She'll just never call it that, because he's only two years younger than her. It'd be weird. Peter's reaction: Peter knows that he often acts immaturely, and doesn't mind being thought of as younger than he is. He doesn't think of their relationship as familial, like she does (she's way too nice to be family), but if he did, he'd probably think of her as a big sister. 11. Denna loves being Odet, but she hates being Morv Sidh. It's the one thing she'd change about her physiology if she could. It's not the stigma--an adult Morv Sidh is visually indistinguishable from an adult Odet female, so no one knows unless she tells them. It's not that she believes she really is cursed; she doesn't. It's not even the memories of being locked in a dungeon and tortured for twenty years for no good reason. Well, okay. Maybe it is that last one. 12. Denna doesn't care that she is by no means old enough to be Satrai's grandmother, that there's still a lot about him she doesn't know and a lot about him that she does know that sometimes scares her. She doesn't care that he's biologically at least one-third Old One, that he's Thrace's son and Illyria's nephew, that she's only been involved in his life for a handful of months, and that he will probably never care about her nearly as much as she cares about him. He's her baby. End of story. 13. Denna's very first memory is of being fed pakita (the closest Earth equivalent to which is oatmeal) by a Trar nursemaid that kept her face covered the entire time so as not to be looked upon by a cursed one and risk contagion of the curse in her own children. Denna remembers in a bizarre amount of detail the exact red of her face cloth, the purple stitchery in it, and the little gold spirit bells that hung off its ends. What she doesn't remember is the woman's name, or if she ever saw her again. 14. Denna thinks of Bryant as the multiverse's most frustrating older brother. She knows they're not close, but she also knows that they would die for each other in an Apocalypse or a combat situation, and that if she were ever trapped, the way he was in that awful club, Bryant would be part of the effort to come rescue her. Even though her relationship to Cordy, via Isabelle and Connor, is the one that would be more traditionally recognizable, she's thought of Bryant for almost a year now as being a much bigger part of the family. If Hadley betrays him, she'll kill her. Bryant's reaction: Bryant's earned a great deal of respect for Denna after she rescued him from the brothel. Since then, he's opened up more, looking to her as a sounding board for advice and comfort. Someone he can trust when sharing his innermost feelings. But while he trusts Denna, Bryant is leery of her growing fondness of the Old Ones, especially the Squidlets. He keeps his distance when they're around, knowing one day, Denna may have to make a very difficult and personal decision. 15. If any record of her birthday is ever found, Denna still won't celebrate it. She likes the way she and Wes do it now much better. 16. Denna thinks it's entirely possible that, after Wesley and Satrai, Zak is her best friend. Given how precious little she knows about Zak, and how short the time she's known him for is, she thinks it'd be very disturbing if that were true. It'd actually be emotionally and mentally easier for her if she could cast Zak into a family relationship of some kind (friends are supposed to be people you know really well, family members can be anyone that you just happened to end up with), but she hasn't been able to think of one that he actually fits. Zak's reaction: '''If asked, Zak would suggest himself as an uncle. He'd even start acting more avuncular, watching Denna and playing to her expectations. 17. Denna's biggest not-really-a-fear is that somehow, Peter will someday find out that the closest Earth equivalent to the animal her species evolved from is a platypus. She doesn't know exactly what would happen, but she gets the feeling that the resultant influx of too many possible jokes would break his brain. 18. Denna's biggest very-much-a-fear is that Wesley, Connor, Kiin, Tristan, Satrai, Cordelia, Bryant, Lilia, Peter, Zak or all of the above will somehow get killed. She doesn't know exactly what would happen, but she gets the feeling that the kind of pain she'd experience if she lost any of them would actually kill her. 19. She will never admit this, but so far, she actually likes most of the Old Ones she's met, and all of the ones she doesn't like, she did like at one time. She's not naive to the threat they pose...but it is harder for her to take seriously, when all of the ones she's had contact with are people she's fed. She invariably grows to care for anyone that she feeds. 20. Denna liked Dannie well enough, but she will never forgive Angel for running off with her. Ever. He abandoned their family for some pretty blond girl of unstoppable cheerfulness. She's killed men for less. '''Peter's reaction: When Denna mentioned this, he changed the subject very quickly. Category:Characters Category:Odet Category:Active Characters Category:H's Character